Bacon and Eggs Poached in Red Wine

Post Birthday

This is an old Keith Floyd recipe. A decade before the celebrity chef thing he was wandering around the world being a role model to impressionable young cooks. The important thing wasn't flashy cosmopolitanism, or bold experiments but craftily knocking back two bottles of red while cooking. It's little wonder he came up with this recipe which has been sitting in my recipe book, untested, for 12 years. The instructions aren't too clear, which may have had more to do with me discovering bucket bongs than Keith's cookbook. So it may not be a faithful reproduction and the original didn't have black pudding.

• 500gm of bacon - unsliced (ask the butcher) and cut into cm cubes
  
• 6" black pudding - cm slices
  
• bottle of cheap red or leftovers if you've got them
  
• 3 sprigs thyme; 1 sprig parsley; bay leaf
  
• butter
  
• 2 cloves garlic, i onion - chopped
  
• a dozen free range eggs
  
• a loaf of New Norcia rye bread-sliced toasted
  

Choose a big saucepan. Fry the bacon in a bit of the butter until nice and golden. Remove the bacon then and saute the onions and garlic until soft, pour in the wine and add the herbs and get it boiling. Put the bacon back in and keep boiling for about 15 minutes to reduce the wine. Meanwhile I fried the black pudding slices, adding it to the red wine a few minutes before it finished boiling - I didn't want the salty blood taste to dominate.
Remove all the solids with a slotted spoon - keeping the bacon and black pudding warm in a tray in the oven.
Reduce the heat of the wine to a very gentle simmer and then add each egg with a ladle and leave to poach - I did 6 at a time.

Everyone got a piece of toast and one of the poached eggs, the bacon and black pudding was spooned over the egg and a bit of the red wine poaching liquid poured over. As this wasn't quite unhealthy enough, I cooked up some excellent spicy Cacciatore sausages that I'd bought at the butchers at Herdies Fresh.

It was good hangover fare but the black pudding wasn't to everyone's liking and I may leave it out next time or just keep it for myself.